ence of women, Plato
shows, that while he borrowed from the institutions of Sparta and
favoured the Spartan mode of life, he also sought to improve upon them.

The enmity to the sea is another Spartan feature which is transferred
by Plato to the Magnesian state. He did not reflect that a non-maritime
power would always be at the mercy of one which had a command of the
great highway. Their many island homes, the vast extent of coast which
had to be protected by them, their struggles first of all with the
Phoenicians and Carthaginians, and secondly with the Persian fleets,
forced the Greeks, mostly against their will, to devote themselves to
the sea. The islanders before the inhabitants of the continent, the
maritime cities before the inland, the Corinthians and Athenians before
the Spartans, were compelled to fit out ships: last of all the Spartans,
by the pressure of the Peloponnesian War, were driven to establish a
naval force, which, after the battle of Aegospotami, for more than
a generation commanded the Aegean. Plato, like the Spartans, had a
prejudice against a navy, because he regarded it as the nursery of
democracy. But he either never considered, or did not care to explain,
how a city, set upon an island and 'distant not more than ten miles from
the sea, having a seaboard provided with excellent harbours,' could have
safely subsisted without one.

Neither the Spartans nor the Magnesian colonists were permitted to
engage in trade or commerce. In order to limit their dealings as far
as possible to their own country, they had a separate coinage; the
Magnesians were only allowed to use the common currency of Hellas when
they travelled abroad, which they were forbidden to do unless they
received permission from the government. Like the Spartans, Plato
was afraid of the evils which might be introduced into his state
by intercourse with foreigners; but he also shrinks from the utter
exclusiveness of Sparta, and is not unwilling to allow visitors of a
suitable age and rank to come from other states to his own, as he also
allows citizens of his own state to go to foreign countries and bring
back a report of them. Such international communication seemed to him
both honourable and useful.

We may now notice some points in which the commonwealth of the Laws
approximates to the Athenian model. These are much more numerous than
the previous class of resemblances; we are better able to compare the
laws of Plato with those